Blog

How long does it take to become an outstanding retail leader? John Lewis Partnership desperately needs one. The clock is already ticking for Sharon White, JLP’s incoming Executive Chair, and following yesterday’s news it is ticking much faster.

Yesterday was dramatic to say the least. Poor Christmas trading came as no surprise. JLP announces its weekly sales figures and it was clear where they would be. Warnings on profits and the bonus were inevitable.

Of more significance is the departure of Paula Nickolds, what it symbolises, and the way it was handled. This was all about the new structure. Sir Charlie Mayfield indicated that it had been an iterative process and that he had the support of the senior team. He may well have at the outset. But somewhere along the road of those iterations, Rob Collins (at the time they were announced) and Paula Nickolds (I suspect gradually over the past two months or so) have both voted with feet and resigned. The ambiguity around her departure reflects badly on the business.

Losing your two top leaders in normal times would be bad enough. But with a new Executive Chair about start, it is much more so. Then magnifying the significance many times further is the fact that the incoming leader (by definition the senior executive in the company) has no commercial background at all, let alone a retail one. She would and should have relied on those two leaders to accelerate her learning about the business and the industry.

JLP faces the most challenging moment in its history. Fundamental structural and cultural issues will fill what will be a huge agenda. The new leadership structure she will inherit will make addressing these issues far more difficult. With seven direct reports, it has essentially fragmented the responsibility of the executive directors and magnified responsibility of the Executive Chair, the person with the least retail experience. At the very time the Partnership desperately needs to be far more commercial, more focused and to greatly increase the speed and tempo of everything it does, this structure almost seems designed to go in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, that clock is ticking. It is clear that in 2020 the market will get tighter and trading economics will be further squeezed. It will not wait for JLP to bed in a new way of working. Far reaching decisions need to be made now and they must be right. Retail is unforgiving. No brand is owed a living. The Partnership needs to up its game, and quick.

** I support retailers and stakeholders with strategic advice. If you think I can help, drop me a line – richard@richardtalksretail.co.uk

In keeping with tradition, Next kicks off the Christmas Trading Statements season this morning and as ever, many will assume it is an indicator for the sector. And as ever, it wont be. Next’s figures are excellent given the market background of soft demand and wall to wall discounting across the sector. But far from being an industry bellwether, Next is almost always a significant outperformer.

While the current retail malaise is impacting all sectors of the trade, none is impacted more than the middle market. 2020 will be the defining year for both Debenhams and House of Fraser. M&S will cede further ground and given this competitive landscape, John Lewis should be hoovering up some incremental business but it is struggling. The major beneficiary of middle market weakness is Next, fuelled by its Label brands platform – in my view the most significant strategic development from the company in more than a decade.

In general, Christmas Trading Statements have always been unreliable and misleading. They are unaudited, vary in definitions and timeframes from one company to the next, and there are no agreed criteria or rules. And that’s before online is considered. Most retailers have growing online businesses. Returns peak at Christmas with gift buying and are rarely accounted for because the reporting periods pre-date most if not all. So the headline trading numbers are generally inflated. Some of those impressive-looking sales will be going back to customers as refunds – not great for cash flow.

Things are rarely what they seem. Next’s numbers will still look respectable once returns are in. But for the bulk of the market, returns will put Christmas trading into negative territory.

Talk has always been cheap but never so widely available at such threadbare prices. Black Friday kicks off the silly season of meaningless reports about how successful it has been,  desperately trying to divert attention from what is by definition, an act of industry-wide self-harm.

Clearly, consumers only have a certain amount of money and that spend forward several weeks at a discount remains destructive. What to sell remains an issue. Either you clear mainstream stock or you buy specially – either way you will both dilute your margins and your brand equity. Whatever the claims, special buys are of inferior quality.

Then there are returns. Everyone quoting this year’s sales hike will quote gross ie before returns because they will not yet know. And when they quote year-on-year figures, are last year’s figures gross or net? And have they forecast this year’s returns, and if so on what basis?

The potential damage of Black Friday is being mitigated to a degree by a) extending the period and b) managing down more tightly the volume of offer discounted. But both are sticking plasters that provide limited protection. Once Black Friday ends it will merely be swapped for the next promo as we run into Christmas, discounting all the way, followed by the Christmas Trading Statement season.

Again, we will hear of sales records broken and best evers, press releases featuring sales of (insert product of choice) spanning the earth three times and with a few very notable exceptions, will actually tell us little. These Statements have always been open to abuse but today, with online so significant, they are deeply misleading. They never ever include returns. Retailers with significant, and growing, online sales will necessarily be reporting inflated numbers. And naturally, the topic of margins will not feature at all.

Talk is getting increasingly cheap. My advice is, don’t buy it.

The fallout of M&S from the FTSE is clearly very symbolic, although the writing on the wall has been getting larger for decades. This business was once a true world leader, not just in retailing but in the merits in paternalistic business management. It set standards others could only dream of. But that was long ago and the decline since has been slow and painful, spanning a succession of leadership teams all of which promised much, spent lots but delivered little. The current team is no different. When a business places more importance on lowering costs than driving sales the alarm bells should be ringing.

The issues of Marks go way beyond getting some fashions wrong or not buying enough jeans. They are systemic – a loss of culture and the values that held it together. This is all about allowing the brand and what it means to simply get lost. The idea of M&S being a family food shop has led to its acquisition of 50% of Ocado – the tail wagging the dog and likely to lead to the dilution of its core food offering as it seeks to integrate the two. The idea that M&S needs to attract young (or younger) clothing shoppers is similarly ill conceived. Shoppers never want to shop in their Mother’s or Grandmother’s stores. Its core customer is now in her early 60s and it is imperative M&S defends its core business before thinking about any layers beyond.

Clothing has been the biggest issue and its decline has been inevitable and totally predictable. For years, the company has sought to alleviate margin pressure by cost cutting. Successive culls of highly skilled, knowledgeable staff led to progressively sub-contracting to third parties the core skills that made M&S the state-of-the-art retailer it once was. Moreover, systematic pressure sent up the supply chain to its suppliers has led to a progressive diminution of product quality. Try finding any natural fibre on the womenswear floor today. Its core customers are not interested in lower prices if it means inferior, irrelevant product.

Marks and Spencer’s decline has been slow and painful. Some might say it really began when Sir Rick Greenbury set his heart on making £1 billion profit, an ambition that was duly delivered in 1997 but at a heavy price, including subsequently his own position. He helped introduce a level of politics in the business that was very unhealthy. His anointed successor was Peter Salsbury – a very able retailer who was not really suited to be CEO – lasted less than two years and was succeeded by the company’s first external appointment as Executive Chairman, Luc Vandervelde, a Belgian retailer secured at great cost for a large transfer fee in February 2000.

Marks’ performance had deteriorated steadily since the £1 billion profits bubble. Together with CEO Roger Holmes, another external appointment, a range of initiatives did restore performance to a degree but there was one symbolic decision which in my view ranks at least alongside today’s fall from the FTSE. Vandervelde and Holmes sold the monolithic Michael House Baker Street head office for £115m. By the time the deal actually completed, Stuart Rose had taken over but the sale of such an immensely valuable asset for such a giveaway price was, I think, disposing of much more than just bricks and mortar.

Archie Norman has certainly injected a leaner, more fleet of foot style of business at M&S. He has also separated food and clothing to a larger than ever extent, a possibly portentous move. Being more agile and moving faster is positive but only if it’s in the right direction. It’s not.

The M&S flagship at Marble Arch and Selfridges are neighbours on Oxford Street. I can remember when going from one to the other was an object lesson in good and bad retailing. One store didn’t just represent the leading edge thinking of UK retailing but was at the top of the industry globally. That good and bad remains as stark, but the two companies have swapped places.

M&S has lost its way badly. Much of what made it really special has been allowed to erode and today, has all but disappeared. Food remains a good business, a leading innovator with dynamic ranging. However, management aspires to be the family supermarket it actually has never been. The (in my opinion ill-judged) deal with Ocado will add loads of product, most of which is of markedly lower quality and which in any case most stores do not have the space to accommodate. Clothing lacks style, isn’t sure who it is aimed at and finding any natural fibres in garments is increasingly difficult. Cutting costs has translated to a progressive decline in fabric and general product quality.

Selfridges is the polar opposite. One or two steps inside the door and you can feel the buzz. There is a constant energy around the store. Footfall these days is many times that of M&S Marble Arch. Of course, the nature of the store attracts lots of “window shoppers” but nevertheless, the numbers translate to vastly superior sales densities. And Selfridges never rests on its laurels. The store has a constant stream of new ideas, new offerings, new departments and brands, meaning it remains fresh and maintains that vibe of excitement.

In business copying is a waste of time. M&S cannot be Selfridges, any more than Debenhams, HoF and John Lewis further up the street can. Nevertheless, retailing is an industry where pretty much everyone’s trading secrets are there to see on the sales floor. You can learn from the winners and incorporate elements of their thinking into your own.

UK retailing has become far too corporate for this trading market. When pleasing shareholders is deemed to be more important than pleasing customers the alarm bells should start ringing. The M&S leadership team has vastly overrated the importance of lowering prices. Their customers are far more interested in relevant, quality product. The business will continue to decline for as long as they have these fundamental factors the wrong way around. And Selfridges goes from strength to strength, investing more and more into progressively improving its core.